Center Profile

Cancer Center salutes Marty Heslin, M.D., Comprehensive Cancer Center scientist, associate professor in the Department of Surgery Section of Surgical Oncology and director of the Multidisciplinary Gastrointestinal (GI) Oncology Center. He was recruited to UAB in 1996 from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where he completed clinical and research fellowships. He received his B.S. from Cornell University (1983) and M.D. from SUNY Health Science Center at Syracuse (1987). Dr. Heslin completed his residency at New York University Medial Center (NYU). As associate director for general surgery residency, Dr. Heslin has received numerous teaching awards.. His clinical and research interests include GI cancers and soft tissue sarcomas.

Challenging Opportunities With Happy Endings

When recalling the details of his 42 years, Marty Heslin, M.D., quickly points out a pattern. His life, he says with a smile, is a series of challenging opportunities that worked out for the best. From his schooling to career ambitions, opportunities presented themselves that allowed him to become the person he is today — surgeon, teacher, researcher and family man.

A New York native, Dr. Heslin spent his childhood in the lakeside resort town of Mahopac, New York. He was the second of five children born to Peg and the late Eugene Heslin. “My parents always taught us to do our best and helped us achieve our goals by exposing us to many varied experiences,” Dr. Heslin recalls. Their teachings paid off. His siblings include a fellow physician, an international policy expert, a software engineer and a medical secretary.

In seventh grade Dr. Heslin joined a team that would change his life: wrestling. At first, wrestling was just a sport, an activity that helped him feel like he belonged at school. “Looking back, wrestling solidified the values that would shape my career, including discipline, team work and the importance of leadership,” he says. It also provided him the opportunity to attend a first rate college. His first choice was Colgate University. However, Colgate could not offer him financial aid, as did his second choice, Cornell University. He secured a spot as a microbiology major and pursued his single dream of becoming a national wrestling champion. Training and competing became his entire focus. The rigorous physical training took its toll, and his schoolwork suffered.

Then one day he met another student at the bus stop to microbiology lab. The student, John Schor, would become a cardiac surgeon and one of his best friends. “He told me that I needed to get serious with my course work and should come with him to the library to study. That’s what I did,” Dr. Heslin says. Long nights in the library helped him improve his grades. The more he learned about medicine, the more he was convinced he, too, wanted to be a physician. Splitting time between wrestling and school was a constant challenge, but this period of time spawned the idea that that he might want to combine medicine and sports into one; like in orthopedic surgery.

Discussing medical school was one of the last things Dr. Heslin talked about with his father, who died of a heart attack while Dr. Heslin was a college sophomore. “I got into medical school two years to the day that he died,” he says. “It was difficult because that was the last major life decision he was there to share with me.” He was accepted by SUNY Health Science Center at Syracuse, where he would later graduate with high honors. He continued to wrestle as a sport throughout medical school, but realized that life had a path with different challenges.

Finding a Specialty

Upon completing his first year of medical school, Dr. Heslin did research in an orthopedic laboratory. “I tell all the medical students that they will change their specialty goal at least once,” he says. Just like most people, he became intrigued with another medical specialty. “I enjoyed the physiology associated with cardiac surgery much more than with bones. I learned I wanted to take care of more than just one system,” he says. Hoping to stay in the Northeast, he matched at New York University (NYU), where he pursued his new ambition of becoming a cardiac surgeon.

As he juggled the long hours of a resident with goals for the future, another life-changing event occurred. There he met the former Amy Quinn, a surgical nurse at NYU. With many common interests and philosophies, they began dating which continued during his research fellowship. In 1991, the couple married.

In 1989 he began a two-year research fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Surgical oncology, he learned, offered many of the things he wanted, including a variety of surgical procedures and the chance to do research involving patients. He was guided by mentor Murray F. Brennan, M.D., chairman of the Department of Surgery. Dr. Brennan, regarded as a national expert in the treatment of soft-tissue sarcomas, endocrine tumors and pancreatic and stomach cancers, greatly influenced Dr. Heslin. After completing five years of a surgical residency, Dr. Heslin was accepted for a two-year clinical fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering. During this time, he was named the first Kristen Ann Carr Fellow, which allowed him to spend the second year in specialized sarcoma training with Dr. Brennan. Few physicians have expertise in the treatment of soft tissue sarcoma, which occurs in connective tissue such as muscles, tendons, vessels that carry blood or lymph, joints and fat. This experience provided him with a foundation in sarcoma treatment and research that he would take with him as he pursued his career path.

The Move To UAB

Dr. Heslin was recruited to UAB in 1996 by Marshall M. Urist, MD. Leaving his New York home was a difficult decision, but the opportunities at UAB were too great to pass up. Under the mentorship of Dr’s Urist and Bland; and the support of the Cancer Center, he would have the chance to build a clinical practice and grow his research efforts in gastrointestinal oncology and the management of soft tissue sarcoma. Within a few years, he was named associate director for general surgery residency.

Educating medical students and residents is an important activity for Dr. Heslin, who enjoys teaching the technical and interpersonal skills necessary for life as a physician. “I stick to a few simple rules to teach students about patient care,” he says. “Be honest with patients. Explain to them the nature of their illness and the options available. And be there for them. Patients need to know that if you can’t cure them that you are not going to abandon them.” In 2003, he received every teaching award for which he was eligible, including teaching awards from third and fourth year medical students, surgical residents and the UAB President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, UAB School of Medicine. “I am especially proud of the awards that came from the students and residents,” he says.

In 2001, he was among a core group that created the Multidisciplinary GI Oncology Center (MDGIOC) at The Kirklin Clinic, which provides patients convenient access to physicians and staff in disciplines such as medical, radiation and surgical oncology. GI cancers include esophageal, gastric, pancreatic, liver and colorectal malignancies. Unlike other interdisciplinary clinics, where patients are seen by several physicians in a single location, the MDGIOC allows physicians to see patients in their respective clinics on the same day. These physicians meet after clinic to discuss treatment options and formulate a comprehensive treatment recommendation which is discussed with each patient. “This clinic model has proven to be an efficient and effective one for patients and physicians,” Dr. Heslin says.

After focusing for the first five years on building his clinical practice, Dr. Heslin is taking a more direct route in developing his research emphasis, focusing on GI cancers and sarcomas. “When I came to UAB, I never wanted my own laboratory, but found that it was necessary to accomplish my long term goals of being funded by the National Institute of Health. I have always wanted my research to be translational,” he says. “The questions I want to answer come directly from my experiences in the clinic which will hopefully have direct benefit to patients.” Dr. Heslin and Cancer Center Associate Scientist Pablo Arnoletti, M.D., have recently moved their research enterprise to a 400 square foot laboratory on the fifth floor of Wallace Tumor Institute. With a continued collaboration with Robert Diasio, MD of Pharmacology and Toxicology, the newly developed Surgical Oncology Research Laboratory includes the technology to measure gene expression, immunohistochemistry and cell culture experiments. Dr. Heslin is currently examining a number of research questions. These include the effect of the COX-2 inhibitor Celebrex on molecular changes in colon cancers and molecular alterations in soft tissue sarcomas.

Building his research enterprise, along with maintaining other duties, is Dr. Heslin’s most pressing professional goal. Specifically, he is working to obtain grant support. “One of my greatest challenges is balancing my goal of research with all of my other responsibilities,” he says. Working most days from 6:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., his time is carefully scheduled into segments for the operating room, clinic, lab and his office.

In addition to his professional duties, spending time with his family is also a priority. He and Amy have three sons: Ryan, 10, Daniel, 8 and Lucas, 5. All three of their children are active in sports, and Dr. Heslin makes it a point to participate in as many of their events as possible. Hockey and soccer are their main activities, and two are on travel teams that play hockey throughout the Southeast. Dr. Heslin coaches an under-six soccer team, and brings the boys to many of the out-of-town hockey events. “It does give us a lot of time together, which is very important to my children and me” he says.

In his rare spare time, Dr. Heslin enjoys golfing and plays hockey himself. He keeps a Fender guitar in his office, and often plays such rock favorites as Bruce Springsteen and R.E.M. in between writing grants. Maintaining interests outside of his career is important to him. “All of the experiences outside medicine made me who I am and I believe a better doctor.” As for his long-term goals, he says that he is still figuring out the specifics, though they will focus on similar pursuits “maintaining an active clinical practice, serving as a teaching leader, building on research and spending time with his family.

“The emphasis for me is bringing people together; whether that’s in the operating room, in a research lab or in a sporting event,” Dr. Heslin says. “I have a lot of goals and realize it may take me a while to reach all of them.” Balancing time and priorities isn’t easy, but he’s in it for the long haul. After starting out with some challenging opportunities, Dr. Heslin is now living his first choice: being the best academic physician, researcher, husband and father he can be.

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